A kinder, gentler outgoing governor addressed an unsympathetic House and a scandal-troubled Senate.
Gov. Rick Scott delivered his final State of the State Address on Tuesday as the Florida Legislature launched its 2018 session.
Scott, never known for stirring oratory, laid out a budget vision designed to smooth some sharp edges from a governor first elected in the tea party wave of 2010 and likely to run for the U.S. Senate as a reliable ally of President Donald Trump.
His budget proposal features cheaper driver's licenses, more money for schools and more money for the environment. Heck, more money for everything. Scott’s $87.4 billion spending plan is $2.1 billion more than his tight, recession-impacted first budget.
And a governor who has a terrible reputation with environmentalists suggested a budget with almost $40 million more for state parks and $50 million for the popular Florida Forever land-buying program, which is more than it got last year by roughly — let me get my calculator out — $50 million. Plus $355 million for Everglades restoration.
But a governor who is thinking about running in a general election as a kinder, gentler version of his old tea party self faces a Legislature with a House speaker who is focused more on the hard-conservative base voters he must appeal to in a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary.
And sure enough, Speaker Richard Corcoran wasted no time in his opening address in throwing cold water on the governor’s ideas about paying for increased school funding through property taxes.
Here’s some of what I’ll be watching over the next two months:
Florida Forever: You’d think that in 2014, when the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative passed with 75 percent of the vote, legislators would sit up take notice. They did not. Florida Forever got zip last year. A bill in the Senate would up that to $100 million. Expect more money this year, although not that much more.
Local control: Remember when Republicans used to rhapsodize about local government as closest to the people? Ah, the 1980s were a great time. Now, it’s Tallahassee Knows Best.
All kinds of local preemption bills are in the hopper. Legislation has been filed to ban city tree-protection ordinances, to prevent them from limiting vacation rentals and Airbnb.com rentals, and to require legislative oversight of community redevelopment agencies.
Speaker Corcoran always is interested in telling cities and counties what they can't do, and in his opening remarks, he pledged to come down hard on sanctuary cities that don’t help enforce immigration laws. Florida has no sanctuary cities, but if we did, they’d be worried.
Gambling: After years of stalemate and stall, the Legislature may just take up the issue of gambling again. Including fantasy sports, which I have trouble differentiating from Internet sports betting, but legislators feel otherwise. Meanwhile, petition gatherers are out pushing for a constitutional amendment giving voters a veto on casino gambling, and they’re close to their goal.
Texting while driving: Florida’s texting-while-driving law is among the loosest in the nation. And it took five years for even that weak law to pass. Now, a tougher proposal looks like it has the backing to become law. Hope so.
In the meantime, note to drivers: If you’re texting, you are not looking around you. And those are Florida drivers around you. Excitement may be just around the corner.
Internal scandals: The Florida Legislature’s rich history of misbehavior used to be laughed off as shenanigans that were part of a convention-like legislative session. But the culture has changed and not everyone has realized that in a timely manner.
In December, Jack Latvala, powerful appropriations chairman and Republican candidate for governor, resigned from the Senate because of misconduct with staffers and lobbyists. Two months before, the Senate’s incoming Democratic Leader, Jeff Clemens, had resigned after reports of an affair with a lobbyist hit the media.
And on opening day, two senators, Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, and Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, issued a joint statement saying they seek forgiveness because their “longtime friendship evolved to a level that we deeply regret.” (Who says legislators never reach across the aisle?)
It’s easy to suspect that new dormant revelations are out there to enliven an election-year session.